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If I were Nathan, no one would question me being grumpy. But everyone knows I’m the sunshine on the team, not the dark cloud.
Maybe I should have just gone home. But even aside from book club being at the house tonight, being around Mom when I’m keeping a secret leaves guilt hanging over me like a dense smog. I am the air above L.A. during rush hour. The longer I wait to tell her, the worse I feel.
But telling her makes itreal. Until then, I can just handle breathing in my own smog.
And handle the guys pressing me for answers.
“Well?” Alec arches a brow. “What’s the tea?”
“Who said anything about tea?” Van’s lip curls. As though tea in any variety is akin to poison. In most cases, I’d agree with him.
“It’s an expression,” Logan says. “To spill the tea is to share gossip.”
“Well, aren’t you fancy with all the terms,” Van says, using quote fingers aroundterms.
Logan lifts a shoulder, the same side of his mouth titling up in a half grin. “Parker.”
Logan’s girlfriend, Parker, aka the Boss, is the team’s social media manager. As well as the slang and pop culture professor, it seems. For now, even though she’s not here, she also makes for a good distraction.
Notquitegood enough.
“Forget I mentioned tea,” Alec says. “Why are you suddenly acting like an Oscar-the-Grouch-Eeyore hybrid who skates like he’s wearing cinder blocks on his feet?”
I pass my plate to Felix, and by the time it returns, my appetite has disappeared. Still, I slide my fork through the lasagna, cutting it into messy little squares oozing with cheese and sauce. If I can’t even enjoy this, I’m sunk.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mutter, spearing a piece of lasagna. Normally, I’d have shoveled most of the plate into my mouth, not be basically playing with my food.
“It’s about a girl,” Van says, speaking around a huge bite of lasagna. A string of cheese is caught in the dark stubble on his chin, making him look ridiculous.
“Or lack thereof,” Alec says.
“Woman,” Felix corrects without even looking up from his plate. “Not girl.”
“Okay, a lack ofwomen,” Alec says.
“It’s not that,” I say, but the turn in conversation has me thinking about Bailey.
How round her eyes got when I mentioned marriage. The way her cheeks flamed red. The surprising warmth of her skin under my fingertips.
Bailey is cute. Pretty, even. It’s not like I didn’t notice before, but it was more a detached observation.
Fact: Bailey is pretty.
But the other day, I noticed her with a whole different set of senses. In the swoop of my stomach as I crouched in front of her, rubbing her back. In the sharp need to lean closer, the tug right in the center of my chest, the buzz of my fingertips.
Feeling: Bailey is pretty.
It was … disconcerting. Especially considering the way I was already falling all over myself with words. Add in the sudden visceral awareness of her, and it’s a wonder I could form any coherent syllables at all.
Not that it matters. I don’t need to be noticing Bailey. Or anyone. How poorly that conversation went only makes me less enthused to discuss any of it now.
“Your face says it’s a woman problem,” Logan points out unhelpfully.
I take a bite of lasagna, just to keep from having to answer. The taste of garlic and fresh basil and whatever other kinds of magic Felix baked into it almost makes this whole line of questioning tolerable. Almost.
“If you don’t tell us, we can’t help fix it,” Felix says.
“This isn't fixable.”
